Talk:Jesse Singal

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Contested deletion[edit]

The reviewing admin is invited to view the deleted versions and see that this one is very different. Things have changed since the AfD and the last G4 and this version is much better than the 2020 version if I recall correctly. Per WP:G4: It excludes pages that are not substantially identical to the deleted version, [and] pages to which the reason for the deletion no longer applies. Pinging Colin M as the creator of this article. Crossroads -talk- 22:16, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I haven't seen the deleted version, but it's described at the AfD discussion as "a single-sentence ten-word article", so I don't think G4 is appropriate. Colin M (talk) 22:37, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Article should not be deleted. Singal has grown in prominence in recent years (including with a recent trade paperback being published) and this article seems more then sufficient to meet wikipedia standards. The article for deletion page I found was from 2018 [1] and seems to be for a less substantial article.-Pengortm (talk) 22:41, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's as may be, but I don't see any sources in the article yet that would be WP:SIGCOV of Singal or satisfy WP:BASIC. If the article doesn't improve in that respect, I'd be happy to take it to AfD. Newimpartial (talk) 22:54, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

When I looked for sources a year ago to see if I could create an article, I didn't find enough that I felt GNG were met. Some more have become available since then, though 13 refs (plus 4 citations of Singal), some of which are not primarily about Singal, is still not great, and puts a cap on how detailed / what class the article could be even if fleshed out as much as RS allow. OTOH, I see articles kept at AfD with less. Indeed, re-reading WP:BASIC is startling, it's so much more restrictive than AfD outcomes I've seen, especially for articles on men. (Women and non-binary people are a different story, to the extent that I'm not even linking an example of the latter lest it WP:BEAN another AfD.) IMO it's borderline (and as an aside, given that he's raised the spectre of litigation against a number of people he views as having criticized him, and their employers, and acquaintances, etc, it seems likely to be a magnet for trouble), but I'm not sure deletion would be right (or would get consensus at AfD). -sche (talk) 05:47, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there's not a lot of coverage of Singal per se, but I think it easily meets the threshold of WP:SIGCOV as it's interpreted at AfD. (Not to get all "other stuff exists", but in terms of sourcing, I think this article compares very favourably to a randomly selected article from Category:American science journalists.) Also, when considering whether this article is useful to readers, I think one important aspect is that it serves as a 'hub' for a few related topics which are closer to the borderline of being independently notable, namely: his podcast, his Atlantic article on youth transition, and his book. Also, the fact that this article has 19 mainspace incoming wikilinks is a decent indication of notability/utility of the article to readers. Colin M (talk) 15:06, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sources re cover model for Atlantic story[edit]

@Freepsbane: the third paragraph of the Atlantic section is cited to the Nieman Foundation for Journalism, but per the editor's note at the top of https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/09/are-news-companies-already-putting-diversity-pledges-on-the-back-burner/ it looks like it should actually be attributed to the newsletter "The Front Page" put out by The Objective. Nieman lab is just hosting their content. But also, when that piece talks about the cover model, it's just summarizing a story done by the Poynter Institute. So it seems like it would be preferable to cite that original reporting directly? Colin M (talk) 02:03, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Colin M: If you recall our guidelines: secondary sources (as in regarded sources summarizing primary sources) are highly preferred to primary sources. If you wish to supplement it with primary sources you may, as is Nieman considers them part of its publication. And this article desperately needs weighty sources if it wants to establish notability.Freepsbane (talk) 02:06, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Poynter Institute story is not a primary source. Colin M (talk) 02:07, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent, so it should be added but Nieman being a higher order secondary source and regarded as the most credible review on journalism clearly is important to establishing this articles viability.Freepsbane (talk) 02:09, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have a source for your claim that "The Front Page" is a part of the Nieman Foundation? That's not the impression I get from the editor's note at the top of the page. Colin M (talk) 02:13, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Why yes, it is part of their collection and has a dedicated section https://www.niemanlab.org/collection/the-objective/ I would encourage you to remember we need reliable sources, preferably secondary. If this article is merely a collection of primary sources, blog posts and a patreon, then it risks merely being a vanity page. Please see their story is featured amongst the rest of that group.Freepsbane (talk) 02:16, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
All that shows is that their content is on the NiemanLab website. We already know that, but they're attributed to "The Objective staff", and they carry the following notice:

Editor’s note: The Front Page is a biweekly newsletter from The Objective, a publication that offers reporting, first-person commentary, and reported essays on how journalism has misrepresented or excluded specific communities in coverage, as well as how newsrooms have treated staff from those communities. We happily share each issue with Nieman Lab readers.

This seems like basically a WP:SYNDICATED situation. If an AP story is printed in the Pacoima Gazette, it should be attributed to the AP, not the Gazette. Colin M (talk) 02:21, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Also, not sure where you're coming from with the primary source concern. There are currently 19 sources cited, of which 4 are primary. Colin M (talk) 02:24, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, half of them are blogs, others seem to be from people who have connections for good or ill. I am concerned that very grandiose claims such as “Singal has been described as one of the most prominent journalists working in the area of transgender issues” were made with no more than a questionably reliable primary source. If he is prominent, how is it he has not been published by a media company on the subject in years? It makes me worry we might be blowing what is essentially blogging and a publishing career that ended years ago out of proportion without any sources to support that.Freepsbane (talk) 02:26, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I question if this article isn’t falling into the same vanity trap the previously deleted article did. Again citing a narrow pool of primary articles by subjects connected to the author for good or ill, the author is questionably notable. Arguably less than last time as he was an editor during the last deletion and is now self published. The book certainly doesn’t meet notability, it can’t be found in any best seller lists, it seems to be selling tepidly at best, and has mixed reviews. It makes me worry we are accidentally doing commercial promotion, by giving attention to non notable subjects and their commercial endeavors.Freepsbane (talk) 02:29, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're confused about the definition of "primary source" conventionally used on Wikipedia. See WP:PRIMARY. You're welcome to nominate the article for deletion if you don't think it meets WP:N, but I think you have some misapprehensions about that policy. It's not possible for a subject to become less notable with the passage of time. Notability is based on secondary RS coverage, and that is not a quantity that can decrease. See also WP:NOTTEMPORARY. Colin M (talk) 02:58, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
True that I let science definitions get in the way since I have to deal with that in life but those are not secondary. His self proclaimed friends writing about him is primary. As is self proclaimed people who dislike him like those two sources you cited to claim he was a world leading journalist. Again primary and part of the story at that, get CJR or something who’s job it is to record what’s happening and then another story. And yes, per wp:1E it is extremely possible to go from being marginally notable to non notable. If he as your article attests is known only for one fracas, and he no longer enjoys the publishing significance he had last deletion when he was an editor, and his book is obscure, then yes, per wp:1E he should not be getting an unneeded page. Or at the very least it should be reworked so that we do not make advertisement pages for an obscure book. Freepsbane (talk) 03:16, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • FYI Colin M, Freepsbane has been blocked for 48 hours for edit warring. Their edits here that remain probably deserve more scrutiny. Crossroads -talk- 15:18, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for the heads up. I definitely see some issues with some of the changes that have been introduced to the article (including the attribution issue I raised above), but it may be a day or two before I have time to work on them. Colin M (talk) 16:06, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

noteworthiness of 2021 NYT book review[edit]

@Basketcase2022: I see you added a new section, "New York Times book review of Trans by Helen Joyce". But I feel it might not satisfy WP:DUE. Singal has written lots of contributions to major publications, including NYT, and I don't think we should necessarily try to summarize all of them in this article. We do go into a lot of detail on the 2018 Atlantic story, but that's because it received a lot of attention from secondary sources. Right now, the Trans review only has a single primary source (the review itself). Unless the review has itself been discussed elsewhere, I'm inclined to remove this section. (It seems more relevant to the book, and I see there is already a very similar paragraph in the book's article.) But let me know if you disagree. Colin M (talk) 16:37, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yeahhh, an entire section with only a (single) primary source (the review in question by the article subject), is an issue; we'd need secondary sources to establish what WP:WEIGHT, if any, the review has. Poking around, the only secondary coverage I spotted—perhaps someone else can find more?—was a Gawker article, "Bigot Reviews Bigot for NYT Book Review", but WP:RSP says "when Gawker is the only source for a piece of information, the information would likely constitute undue weight, especially when the subject is a living person". -sche (talk) 16:57, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
WP:Reliable sources advises: In the 2019 RfC, there was no consensus on whether Gawker should be deprecated. In 2021, the publication was relaunched under Bustle Digital Group. The current incarnation has not been discussed at RSN. Given that ambiguity, we could possibly cite Claire Carusillo's Gawker piece, but only with ad hoc consensus at this talk page. Since it has been just two days since The New York Times published Singal's latest review, I request everyone's indulgence to leave the current subsection in place for at least a week to await additional secondary sources and to allow other editors to comment on this thread. I appreciate your patience. Basketcase2022 (talk) 17:17, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Gawker is clearly still the low-quality opinionated blog it always was, and no self-respecting encyclopedia would cite it. Book reviews generally don't get commentary in RS, so though we can wait a bit, likely it's not going to happen. Crossroads -talk- 04:52, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's not especially noteworthy. Unless other outlets have significantly mentioned Signal's NYT review, it probably doesn't warrant inclusion in this article, let alone its own subheading and full paragraph. Signal has many articles for many outlets (e.g. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]): his biography in this encyclopedia should not cherry-pick or promote any, nor infer significance of any article via juxtaposition with other subjects. It may be fine for Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality to include Singal's review, but this does not mandate Signal's article reciprocates, just as we need not shoehorn his reviews of Ennuigi or Lost at Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries. --Animalparty! (talk) 00:49, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

bias of The Advocate[edit]

As of the current version of this article, The Advocate (LGBT magazine) is used as a source not once but twice. As it is explicitly, foremostly an LGBT magazine and both topics it's cited for concern transgender issues, is this not in violation of WP:BIASED? Hoyadonis (talk) 22:41, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Given that both articles are opinion pieces ("Voices" section, with URL classified as commentary), and given one is cited 4 times, issues of WP:RSOPINION and WP:DUE come into play: one commentary is by Mey Rude, a staff writer for the Advocate, another is by Amanda Kerri, "a writer and comedian". Are these views especially prominent? --Animalparty! (talk) 22:04, 25 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Are you saying that LGBT rights are "biased?" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Terfslayer (talk • contribs) 14:45, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe they’re just saying that, like every living human beings, members of the lgbt “Community” are just as capable of bias as anyone else. I’d you think they’re not? 2601:18F:A82:6E50:8893:FB3F:EB23:8F9D (talk) 13:59, 28 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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